Assessing the latest performance of Galileo-only PPP and the contribution of Galileo to Multi-GNSS PPP

Abstract

By the end of 2016, the Galileo constellation had 4 in-orbit validation (IOV) satellites and 14 full operational capability (FOC) satellites, 17 of which were able to transmit signal in November 2017. Galileo has already had early operational capability (EOC). To assess the latest performance of the Galileo-only precise point positioning (PPP) and the contribution of Galileo to the Multi-GNSS PPP solutions, observations collected at 16 Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) stations over ten days are used to realize the various PPP cases. The statistical results show that the three-dimensional positioning accuracy of Galileo static and kinematic PPP can reach centimeter level and decimeter level after convergence, respectively. The contribution of Galileo can improve the positioning accuracy by 29.49%, 29.96% and 23.70% for GPS kinematic PPP and 11.03%, 10.59% and 11.07% for GPS/GLONASS kinematic PPP solutions in the north, east and up components, respectively. The average convergence time can be reduced by 45.48% for GPS-only kinematic PPP and by 11.04% for GPS/GLONASS solutions by adding Galileo observations. Moreover, adding Galileo observations shortens the average convergence time by 30.45% and 7.8% for GPS-only and GPS/GLONASS static PPP solutions, respectively. Although the convergent positioning results of GPS and GPS/GLONASS static PPP solutions after the addition of Galileo measurements do not demonstrate as significant improvement as those of the kinematic PPP solutions, the positioning accuracy of the GPS/Galileo static PPP solutions compared to the GPS-only static PPP still demonstrates an improvement of approximately 25% on the east component. Furthermore, the GPS/Galileo internal system time bias (ISB) and observation residual are analyzed. The results show that the noise level of the GPS L1/L2 signals and the negative impact of multipath errors on the GPS pseudo-range observations for the L1/L2 signals are greater than those of Galileo E1/E5a signals, resulting in the residuals of GPS ionosphere-free code observations larger than those of Galileo code observations. However, the phase observation residuals of GPS and Galileo are of the same magnitude. Additionally, the one-day GPS/Galileo ISB is quite stable. Its stability described by standard deviation is approximately 0.34 ns.